The four modules contain multiple talks on the drug discovery process and are delivered by expert chemists working in top pharmaceutical companies in the world. Attendants will learn about Strategies to Improve Solubility of Drug Candidates, PAINS filters, using PET for Labeling in Drug Discovery & Development, Pharmacokinetic Considerations in Drug Design and Development, and more.

Module 1: Improving Drug Design Efficiency and Efficacy

Module 2: Activity/Potency Screening for Drug Lead and Candidate Optimization

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The Nobel Prizein Physiology or Medicine 2014 is awarded for discovering how the brain navigates our way – our inner “GPS” system in the brain. The prize goes to J. O’Keefe (UCL, UK) and E. Moser and M.B. Moser (University of Trondheim, Norway).

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On September 24, 2014, a world-class group of scientists from biotech, pharma and academia will present the latest research findings and new technologies that are driving the design, discovery and development of new drugs – from small molecules and monoclonals to RNA therapeutics and gene-editing technologies.

To register for free please follow this link. Even if you can’t make the live lectures or the time zone is not convenient for you, all presentations will be archived and available on demand for three months.

You will even have the chance to “Walk the floor” in a virtual exhibition hall, participate in panel discussions and Q&A sessions and do live-chat with peers and vendors

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How are drugs designed? Come on Friday 2nd May at 18:00 at the Athens Science Festival, Technopolis Gkazi to listen to my talk! See the detailed program of the festival here.

This talk will address how drugs are designed to combat a disease – from the discovery of the cause of the disease (e.g. a mutant protein), specialized techniques for the design of small chemical molecules (that are drugs), to clinical trials. We will also discuss advances and progresses in individualized treatment (also known as personalized medicine), i.e. how DNA testing could help each patient receive medication specifically tailored for them.

This inherent curiosity led me to become a scientist. I studied Chemistry but soon enough I realized that being a chemist makes a huge mess or at least I made one in the lab! Fortunately, I then realized that computers exist and they make things much cleaner. I discovered that today it is possible to build chemicals, study reactions, or even make drugs within a desktop computer by performing virtual experiments in a similar way as the typical chemists. This type of chemistry is called “computational chemistry”. So I became a computational chemist. Indeed, I literally live in a virtual reality world, where everything from chemical reactions to drugs, food, materials, cosmetics, electronics, and proteins is being modeled and simulated. And you won’t believe it, but, yes, I do have a job!

I am a group leader at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens. I specialize in “computer-aided drug design”, so the computer is my Virgil in the world of drugs (to paraphrase the original Nobel Committee tagline). The main activity of my lab is the design of anti-cancer candidate drugs. Recent advances in computer-aided drug design allow us to develop drugs specifically designed for a given protein, shortening the development cycle of new drugs.

Do you want to learn more about what it means to be a computational chemist and how I spend my day? For more details and a video on the life of a computational chemist, please read my full blog post at the Wiley Exchanges site.

Love at first sight? Desire in a bottle? There have been a lot of claims about what pheromones can do, but what is the science? Dr. George Preti and Dr. Charles J. Wysocki of the Monell Chemical Senses Center discuss the chemistry of pheromones and how mood and emotion can be communicated through chemical signals.

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“SMEs- The new tools/opportunities for access to finance introduced by Horizon 2020″ by Jean-David Malo, Head of Unit SMEs, Financial Instruments and State Aid, Directorate General for Research and Innovation, EC.

“Access to risk finance”

Part of the horizon 2020 budget, that is 3,69% (2.7 billion euros) will be provided though grant funding but in the form of risk sharing for loans and guarantees and by providing risk finance (equity).

Goal: stimulate more investment in research and innovation To attract additional finance and multiply horizon 2020 budget resources for SMEs

Why?

Because of enduring difficulties in SMEs in accessing startup/Grant finance and because of the need to build an integrated European VC market

This funding will be typically delivered via financial intermediaries (banks funds etc) but also directly Operated by the EIB group but may also be operated by other financial institutions

Debt finance can be achieved through the following schemes:

Loans service for R&I (called “RSFFII”) Loans and guarantees for investments in research and innovation; targeted at midcaps and larger companies, research institutes and Stand alone projects Loan amounts over 7,5 million

Sme and small midcaps R&I loans service Loan guarantee facility between 25,000 to 7.5 million

SME initiative : Joint guarantee instrument an securitization for loans to innovative SMEs and small midcaps

Pharmacyclics and Janssen’s ibrutinib is a first-in-class Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, which entered the clinic in 2009, and is now approved for an aggressive form of B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but it is now being also tested for other types of cancers such as chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). Ibrutinib is the second irreversible kinase inhibitor to be approved after afatinib, setting new hope for the development of irreversible agents that have been thought difficult to reach the market in earlier years (Nature Rev. Drug Discov.12, 649–651; 2013).

Biogen Idec’s dimethyl fumarate (formerly BG-12) is an extremely small molecule (MW only 144 Da) that had been approved as an anti-psoriasis drug in Germany as well as for preventing the growth of mold in furniture! Now Biogen Idec gets its approval for dimethyl fumarate as the third oral drug for multiple sclerosis. Drug mechanism remains unclear.

GSK’s trametinib is a first-in-class MAPK/ERK kinase (MEK) inhibitor that overcame bioavailability, pharmacokinetics and toxicity problems of previous drug candidates (Nature Rev. Drug Discov.11, 819–820; 2012). Trametinib is approved for cancers bearing specific BRAF mutations (such as metastatic melanoma). GSK picked up five approvals from the FDA last year (counting the approval granted to ViiV), more than any other drug developer in 2013.

Genzyme and Isis’s mipomersen acts on a novel target, binding apolipoprotein B mRNA, reducing protein synthesis and thereby lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. Because of its side effects it may be used only as an orphan disease drug agains homozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia and not as a general cholesterol-lowering agent. Regulators in the European Union (EU) have rejected mipomersen because of its side-effects.

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Arguably this is not the most adorable creature you have ever seen. But, the naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) displays exceptional longevity, with a maximum lifespan exceeding 30 years. In human years (relative to body size as naked mole rats) that is 600 years!

In addition to their longevity, naked mole rats, these subterranean African mammals, show an unusual resistance to cancer. Multi-year observations of large naked mole-rat colonies did not detect a single incidence of cancer! The authors found that the extracellular matrix in naked mole rats is rich in a substance that stops cancers growing. The magic ingredient is a polysaccharide called hyaluronan, which acts as a lubricant in the body. This particular hyaluronan is an extremely high-molecular-mass hyaluronan (HA), which is over five times larger than human or mouse HA.

By manipulating the pathways that lead to the build-up of high-molecular-mass hyaluronan in cells, the authors showed that if we prevent the naked mole rats from making high-molecular-mass hyaluronan then tumours can be grown.

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While the new 7-year funding scheme of EU, “Horizon 2020″ will continue to fund excellent basic research (17% of the total budget), an effort is being made to attract small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to participate in research consortia. After a two-and-a-half-year negotiation, the European Council and the European Parliament reached an agreement (pending final sign-off) that SMEs will claim a 20% of the total budget in an act that aims to boost European economy.

Open access publication of results of all research funded under Horizon 2020 will be mandatory and awards will be made within 8 months as opposed to 12 months, which is the current scheme.